Food Stories episode 11 - Kent
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CreativityTranscript
00:00I've been a chef for over 50 years, but I've come to realise that the food we eat tells
00:08a story about who we are.
00:13So I'm on a mission to find out what we all like to eat today.
00:17Oh, that is good.
00:19From our traditional dishes.
00:21Long live the Yorkshire pudding.
00:23To those we've made our own.
00:25I mean, that is multi-faceted Britain on one plate.
00:28Our meat producers.
00:29There you see a robot, he's picking them.
00:32I find a lot of craft beers too hoppy.
00:34I don't know why, but it tastes all right.
00:38Some of our best chefs.
00:40We're picking scurvy grass.
00:42Why pick it?
00:43Pretty punchy.
00:44Plus those keeping traditions alive.
00:46We've just got to finish.
00:48I have no hope.
00:49I'll see how food brings us together.
00:52Dig in!
00:53Lovely, that sort of hot garlic, fabuloso.
00:58And from my home in Padstow, I'll bring you great dishes of my own.
01:02Love stuff like this.
01:04So join me as I unearth the stories behind the food we all love to eat today.
01:10There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover, tomorrow just you wait and see.
01:35Well this is a bit special for me.
01:37I'm walking through the Dame Vera Lynn Down and thinking about Kent, the garden of England.
01:45Fertile soil, sunny aspect, and close proximity to both the capital and the continent.
01:55The ancient county of Kent is found in the far southeast of the UK, on the heel of Britain.
02:03Kent, England's oldest county, with some of our most magnificent castles and historic houses.
02:11King Henry VIII owned many homes here and loved the county so much that he called it the Garden of England.
02:20Today, Kent still lives up to that title with 10,000 commercial fruit crops,
02:26many of them growing hops for beer, pears, apples, and the vast majority of our homegrown cherries.
02:35Kent produces 90% of all the cherries grown in England.
02:39It's down to the temperate climate and chalky soil which produces the darkest, sweetest cherries.
02:48One of Kent's biggest growers is here at Little Shastard Farm, where they grow 40 hectares of cherries.
02:55That's the size of 74 football pitches.
02:59Hello. Morning, Rick. Morning. Welcome.
03:02Sarah Neaves' family have been farming here for four generations,
03:07and I'm pleased to see she shares both my passion for cherries and hats.
03:13I'm very much a lover of cherries, I have to say, Sarah, so this is like being a fox in the hen house, really, I have to say.
03:23So this variety's Merchant. Look at that. A good old English variety. Aren't they lovely?
03:29They're all right in a punnet, but seeing them on the tree in such a cluster...
03:33And best way to eat a cherry is straight from the tree, I think. Shall I pick you one?
03:40What do you think? Juicy. They're soft and incredibly sweet.
03:45You can't get a better taste than an English cherry, I think.
03:47What makes Kent so special for fruit, and cherries in particular, though?
03:52This area, obviously, we are very, very lucky in the fact that we've got this microclimate.
03:56Henry VIII came with his gardener after trying cherries in Flanders, and he wanted to grow them somewhere,
04:03and he thought bringing his gardener over to Kent...
04:07He found a place in Tenham. As a crow flies, it's about two miles from here.
04:11So he thought it was the best place to grow cherries, and it certainly was.
04:16Well, I'm blowed. I mean, you think of Henry VIII as sort of disposing of his wives, getting rid of them,
04:20but actually he did quite a lot of good as well.
04:22He certainly did. We would certainly not have had cherries in Kent if he hadn't have done that.
04:30Cherries flourish here, but the crop can still be affected by the good old British weather.
04:36This year is a very light crop. We had some very bad north-easterly winds,
04:41and that's why we have these tunnels to protect, and we put those on in February,
04:46and that protects from all weathers, the frost, the winds, and then obviously when the cherries
04:52are on the tree, we've got protection from the rain, because cherries don't like rain, they crack.
04:57It takes us all year to get here, and when it's here, it's hard work, but we all love it.
05:02It's our passion.
05:03Can we see some picking?
05:04Of course you can. Yes, let's go and see the pickers.
05:07Brilliant, brilliant.
05:09Sarah tells me it's a short, sharp picking season of just eight weeks, all done by hand.
05:17An impressive four to six tonnes a day is harvested,
05:20and I'm surprised to see they still use some of the old techniques.
05:25So this is the baskets, the traditional wicker baskets that we pick into.
05:31The guys wear them around their waist. We feel it's better for the quality,
05:34they're not dropping it from a height, so they can put the fruit in a lot easier
05:38if they're up a ladder or on the ground. It's just so much better for the fruit.
05:42Where are they all from, the pickers?
05:44So a lot of these are from Uzbekistan.
05:47And Moldova.
05:48We work six days a week.
05:50They're very good workers.
05:52We have a lot of returnees, which is great,
05:53so they actually know what they're doing when they come back.
05:56And then the new ones are trained by the ones that have come before, so it works perfectly.
06:00I suppose I have to ask the question, but how come you don't get any English workers?
06:05They don't want to. They don't want to pick cherries.
06:08I think short season, it's only a short season, so they don't want an eight-week job.
06:13Well, it's very heartening to know that people are still producing great produce on English soil.
06:22The cherries picked on the farm are all processed on site.
06:26They're brought here to the cool house for stringent quality checks.
06:31They must be the right shade of red, which indicates ripeness.
06:35A sugar test is also run to check they have the correct sweetness.
06:39And finally, they have to meet a size set by the supermarkets.
06:46From farm to shelf takes between 36 to 48 hours.
06:51And I'm happy to tell you they're all sold in the UK.
06:59It all began in 1941, when Sarah's grandparents took charge of a small farm.
07:05Sarah tells me her first memory is picking cherries with her dad, Brian,
07:09who's still involved in the farm today.
07:12As someone running my own family business,
07:15with all the pleasures and pitfalls that involves,
07:19I'm keen to hear how Sarah and her family find working together.
07:23Do you get on?
07:24Sometimes.
07:25LAUGHTER
07:27Well, it's an obvious question, isn't it?
07:29Yeah, of course we do. We do get on, yeah, mostly.
07:32Yeah, we have to. You have to get on, don't you?
07:34I mean, we have our arguments, different ways of doing things, but...
07:37He normally wins.
07:38I normally win.
07:39Don't you think you ought to be handing over to the next generation, then, Brian, or what?
07:42No, cos I've got to keep an eye on things.
07:44LAUGHTER
07:46No, cos I love it. I mean, they like me being round and sort of...
07:51When father died, I said, we've got to go forward, go forward.
07:55Sarah's son, Archie, is the youngest to join the family,
07:58Sarah's son, Archie, is the youngest to join the family as an apprentice.
08:03What's it like for you, you know, joining this family business?
08:07It's exciting. Obviously, everything, farming's constantly changing,
08:11so it's something that's always going to change.
08:15All things are always new, so that always keeps it fresh.
08:19Working with Grandad all the time, learning the old ways,
08:23trying to bring him into the new.
08:24LAUGHTER
08:27Well, thank you very much for talking to me.
08:29I just have to say, I think it's very nice to see a family working together so sort of happily, really.
08:37And one last thing, I like your hat.
08:39And I like yours too.
08:42Good old traditional Panama's.
08:43Best for the sun.
08:44Absolutely.
08:46LAUGHTER
08:57I can't think of a better use for Sarah's cherries
09:02than whipping up some delicious red velvet chocolate and cherry cupcakes.
09:07For the cake mixture, combine flour, cocoa powder,
09:12caster sugar and baking powder.
09:17Then pour in three beaten eggs...
09:21..melted butter...
09:23..red food colouring...
09:27..buttermilk.
09:29And I always add vanilla extract as it enhances the flavour of the chocolate.
09:35I am actually itching to taste this, but I'm not going to.
09:39Chocolate is a great weakness with me.
09:45Pour into muffin cases...
09:47..pour into muffin cases...
09:53..and cook for 15 to 20 minutes.
10:01Now for the cherry compote.
10:03Start by pitting the cherries.
10:07I have a history of cupcakes.
10:09I had this great idea when I was in Sydney about 20 years ago
10:13of launching a little cupcake company.
10:16Unfortunately, we didn't do terribly well with sales
10:19and we didn't do terribly well with staff either.
10:22And I can recall at one stage actually going on the road myself.
10:26Delivering cupcakes to this actually turned out to be an English guy.
10:30He took one look at me and said,
10:32''What on earth are you doing? I only saw you on telly last week.
10:35''Why are you delivering cupcakes?''
10:37Shortly after that, sadly, the cupcake business went bust
10:43and that was the end of cupcakes to me.
10:45But I still have a weakness for them.
10:50For the compote, mix the cherries with sugar.
10:54I'm just going to cook them right down now.
10:57Note I've added no water to them, just using the liquid with the cherries.
11:02So that's now come down very nicely.
11:05Most of the water has boiled off
11:07and that will be really nice and sweet and concentrated.
11:10So we'll just leave that to cool down a little bit.
11:13Great.
11:15Next, the chocolate ganache.
11:19I'm using posh chocolate here.
11:21That's about 70% cocoa content.
11:24And I've got to add some cream to that.
11:29So I'm just going to take that to just under boiling.
11:33I'm interested in the word ganache.
11:35I looked it up and ganache actually comes from Greece.
11:39And then into Italian, ganaccia.
11:42It means a jowl.
11:44I like it.
11:45I just find things like that just make cooking more fun,
11:48if you know where it comes from.
11:52Once the milk is good and hot,
11:54pour it onto the chocolate and give it a stir.
12:00This wants to be quite runny but not too runny
12:03because it's going over the top of my red velvet cupcakes.
12:06OK.
12:10Scoop out a couple of teaspoonfuls from the top of each cake
12:14to make room for the compote.
12:17You can throw away what you're picking out if you like
12:20or you could just eat it later with a cup of tea.
12:23It's up to you.
12:25Great.
12:26So now then, a little bit of cherry compote in each one.
12:32Probably have to go back on the road
12:34and start selling red velvet cherry cupcakes.
12:38Cover with a generous dollop of that gorgeous gooey ganache.
12:51And the cherry on top is one of Kent's finest.
12:56Let's see how it tastes.
13:00Oh.
13:01That's lovely.
13:02The tartness of the cherry compote
13:04and the creamy indulgence of the chocolate ganache,
13:08I think it's working really well.
13:10It's a very nice little counterpoint.
13:12So there's a sort of professional bit over.
13:14I just love a cupcake.
13:16I think whenever I eat cupcakes,
13:18I think, you know, I'm going to have a cupcake.
13:21I just love a cupcake.
13:23I think whenever I eat cupcakes, I think, you know, it's party time.
13:35I couldn't come to Kent
13:37without visiting perhaps one of its hippest spots,
13:40the seaside town of Margate.
13:43It's a magnet for trendy Londoners
13:45flocking to its art galleries, bars and restaurants,
13:49a part of the cool Kent scene that is now thriving.
13:57In the past, Margate was a mecca for the Bucket and Spade Brigade
14:02and was one of the first seaside resorts in the UK.
14:06Its sandy beaches, theatres and amusement parks
14:10drew a steady stream of visitors up until the 1970s.
14:14But as foreign travel became more popular,
14:18Margate went into decline.
14:20It's so nice to be back in Margate.
14:22I haven't been here for 20 years.
14:24But what I'm really liking about Margate this time
14:28is it's come back.
14:30I remember being here then and thinking,
14:33what a lovely place, but how depressingly decrepit it was.
14:37We spent the night in a hotel round here
14:40and in the morning I said to the chambermaid,
14:42there's been a tap dripping all night.
14:45And she said, I know a lot of people say that.
14:47To me, it symbolised the sort of really rather run-down state
14:52of the whole town.
14:54Now, it's sort of regenerated.
14:57It's so much more attractive
15:00and you can see the way it always was attractive.
15:03But the reason that things are looking so optimistic
15:06is that the Turner Contemporary...
15:09Turner was a great lover of Margate.
15:11Indeed, the Turner Contemporary is built right on the site
15:15where his mistress, Sophia Booth, had her boarding house.
15:21Turner is one of my favourite artists.
15:23He was incredibly prolific.
15:26He created over 20,000 drawings and paintings.
15:30Views from Margate Harbour feature in over 100.
15:34And he felt that the seascape and the sky here
15:38were some of the best in all of Europe.
15:40And if you think of that famous painting,
15:43Fighting Temeraire,
15:45there you've got this battleship from the Trafalgar
15:48being dragged up the Thames.
15:51But what makes it so special is this wonderful skyline.
15:57And I think sort of standing here with this big sky above me,
16:01I can really get what Turner felt about it.
16:07As well as inspiring the likes of Turner,
16:10the seas which surround our British Isles
16:13have fundamentally shaped our cuisine.
16:16From the cockles, smoke kippers and jellied eels of bygone days
16:20to the popular fish I'm setting out from Ramsgate Harbour
16:24in search of today, known as the King of Souls.
16:30Well, I love going on my fishing trips,
16:32but this one is particularly special
16:35because we're going for the fish that I think is possibly
16:38my favourite in the whole world, Dover sole.
16:41And the reason that sole are called Dover sole in the UK
16:45is because for a long time the biggest landings of sole
16:49came into Dover.
16:51Of course, the same fish is just called a sole in France
16:54or anywhere else and goes all the way down to the Mediterranean.
16:57But the reason I like it is because I think
17:00it's the perfect combination of texture and flavour.
17:09Taking me out is local fisherman Tom Bennett.
17:13What's special about Tom is that he is one of a dwindling number
17:17of youngsters choosing to earn his living from the sea.
17:21So you put the nets out, what's happening under the sea now then?
17:25Well, the sole nets, we've put them out and they've drifted to the bottom
17:29and now they're ticking along the seabed
17:32and once they've done their distance, we'll have them up.
17:36I meet fishermen all the time who tell me not enough people
17:40are joining the industry, so I'm keen to know why Tom's decided to do so.
17:45What does fishing mean to you then, Tom?
17:48It's my life, it's everything.
17:51You're young, you're very enthusiastic.
17:54Why don't more young people like yourself get involved in fishing?
17:58I think it's harder to get into nowadays.
18:02But it started off with me, the love for it.
18:05It was never about the money.
18:07I started it before I left school.
18:10There's nothing else I want to do.
18:13As it gets harder, you've just got to stick at it.
18:18I have to say, I am like Jonah, I guess.
18:22Whenever I go out fishing, nobody seems to catch anything,
18:25but I'm ever hopeful. Sometimes it works.
18:29On board with Tom and I is Merlin Jackson,
18:32who fished these waters for 25 years
18:35and thinks the reason people are turning their backs on the job
18:38is it's just not profitable enough anymore.
18:42Fishing is hard, fishing is very hard.
18:44It's not just a physical job,
18:46because you don't just put up with days like today.
18:49You'll put up with early mornings in winter and 2am starts
18:52and catching half a bucket of fish that's got no value.
18:55So you really have to want to do it.
18:59When I left school, I'd be up here most nights of the week, school nights.
19:03Really? There'd be eight boats on this little bit,
19:06catching between 20 and 30 stone a sole each boat every night.
19:0920 or 30 stones? A sole each boat, yeah.
19:14At the end of the day, it's just being out on the ocean,
19:17walking and rolling around a bit.
19:20It's sort of like, I just always find it very exhilarating.
19:24It's just coming back from a day's fishing.
19:27You feel you've done something worthwhile.
19:30We've been drifting the nets along the seabed for over an hour now.
19:34It's finally time to pull them in.
19:37And, fingers crossed, I haven't brought bad luck.
19:42There's your first sole, I think.
19:44Yeah, Rick. Hooray!
19:48I just love watching fish coming in the nets.
19:51You never know what's going to come up.
19:53Not a lot of dovers, but quite a few.
19:57Quite small ones.
19:59A lot of dogfish and a lot of jellyfish.
20:02On our way back to shore, Tom counts up the catch.
20:06It's days like today that make it a tough job.
20:09There's a few, but nothing amazing.
20:11So how come you're not keeping the dogfish, then?
20:14There's no money in them?
20:15There's no market for them, unless there's a welcome boat that wanted to bait.
20:19Yeah, well, bait, yeah. Other than that, no.
20:22That's worth keeping.
20:24So who'll buy that, then?
20:26The chip shops should buy that.
20:28It's really nice.
20:29Yeah, you wouldn't want anything smaller than that, keeping it smaller than that.
20:32I suppose the thing that I find a bit depressing is the amount of bycatch which is being thrown out.
20:37And I guess that's really just because we, in this country, don't revere certain fish.
20:43I mean, dogfish particularly, I find really good to eat.
20:48But they don't have any market.
20:51I think it's sort of, in a way, testimony, yeah, to the fact who we are.
20:56You know, I can't imagine in France all those fish would be thrown back
21:00because there'd be a market for them.
21:10Speaking of the French, I've always thought our Gaelic cousins are fantastic at cooking fish.
21:17They've so influenced how we do it over here
21:19that it feels only right to include a French recipe in this series.
21:25Well, I'm going to show you how to make Dover sole à la manure today.
21:29The first thing I'm going to do is skin the Dover sole.
21:32You may never need to do that, but I'm going to show you anyway.
21:35If you can't get Dover sole, use lemon sole instead, and you don't need to skin it.
21:41Start by trimming the fins with your nice sharp kitchen scissors.
21:47Make a tiny incision just behind the tail fin.
21:51Now, get some salt on your hands.
21:54It's going to give you added grip.
21:57Then pull as hard as you can until you hear that very satisfying ripping sound.
22:07There it goes.
22:10Turn it over and do the same.
22:13The thing about this particular Dover sole is it's very, very fresh,
22:17and it makes it harder to skin.
22:20But there we go.
22:23It's done.
22:24Now then, and I do enjoy it,
22:27the next thing is just to trim the tail slightly.
22:32And there we have it.
22:33So that's looking pretty good.
22:35I'm just going to season them now.
22:37So I'm using white pepper, which is the sort of traditional way of using.
22:41I normally use black.
22:43The reason for using white here, it just has a sort of slightly different flavour,
22:47and of course it doesn't show up on the fried fish.
22:52For the coating, add some flour to a flat tray and cover both sides of the fish.
22:58This way of cooking Dover sole is called Dover sole a la manure.
23:02It's Dover sole in the style of the miller's wife.
23:08And if you've been into a flour mill normally,
23:11there's flour everywhere, in the air and over all the surfaces.
23:15So I think the idea is that it would naturally go on the fish.
23:19But that's what you want to end up with,
23:21a sole that's got flour on it but not a lot.
23:25So the next phase is frying.
23:29I'll start off by putting a splash of oil in my pan
23:33before adding a knob of butter.
23:37Once it's nice and hot, it's time to fry the fish.
23:40This will take about seven to ten minutes to cook,
23:43but you do need to keep an eye on it
23:45because I want a nice, lovely, light brown finish on the sole.
23:52After about four minutes, turn it over.
23:56If you haven't got a big enough pan,
23:58you can always just cut the head off there,
24:01just so it fits in more easily.
24:05Once the fish is cooked, you can move on to the sauce, a beurre noisette.
24:10Beurre noisette is nut brown butter,
24:12so I am turning the heat up a little bit
24:14just to get some nuttiness out of the butter.
24:18While the butter heats up, chop some parsley.
24:23Good.
24:24See, it's a nice sort of nut brown colour.
24:26Lemon juice.
24:30Capers.
24:33Shake it all about.
24:38It's smelling gorgeous.
24:40Parsley.
24:46Instant sauce over the fish.
24:53And there you have it.
24:55Deauville sole à la manure.
25:01I'm going to serve it with a nice, crisp sauvignon blanc.
25:08So, this should be fun, the tasting.
25:11I'm just going to try a bit now.
25:17It's firm, it's sweet.
25:20It's firm, it's sweet.
25:22It's precious.
25:24I love a sautéed potato with a piece of deauville sole
25:28and some Swiss chard.
25:30Keep the vegetables simple because it's such a fantastic fish.
25:36Lovely.
25:38It is the king or queen of fish.
25:41I'll drink to that.
25:50We may cook many French-inspired dishes here in the UK today,
25:55but none are quite as adored as the fish dish we're famous for.
26:01Oh, thank you very much.
26:03Cheers. Thank you.
26:05We've been indulging in fish and chips since the early 1860s,
26:09when the first shops opened in East London and near Manchester,
26:14and we haven't looked back.
26:16These days, almost a quarter of us visit the chippy once a week,
26:20but it's not very often we get to enjoy them
26:22in such magnificent surroundings.
26:25Well, I must say, looking at life's simple pleasures,
26:28which can't be beaten, this is one of them.
26:30Eating chips on these steps,
26:33looking out over the bay here at Margate,
26:36and the very good chips they are too.
26:38Now, we all think of fish and chips as being very British,
26:41but like most things in food,
26:43it's never quite exactly as you think.
26:46Fried fish first came into Britain, I think, in the 15th century,
26:51from Portugal.
26:53Jews living in Portugal developed a way of frying fish in oil
26:57in a rudimentary batter made with flour.
27:00And I think the most interesting thing to me, though,
27:03is the point of fish and chips.
27:05In Industrial Revolution Britain,
27:07it was due to the development of steam power
27:10and big, powerful steam trawlers,
27:12which got loads of white fish out of the North Sea,
27:16cod in particular,
27:18and produced very, very cheap protein.
27:21And food and cheap protein, and the Industrial Revolution,
27:25very important, because you needed to feed the workers
27:28with nutritious things like fish and chips
27:31to keep them working hard.
27:33So interesting the way that quite often food drives history.
27:39And also, so interesting how good these chips are
27:43and there's no seagulls.
27:53If you'd like to see more episodes of Rick Stein's Food Stories,
27:57press the red button now to watch on BBC iPlayer.
28:02Next time...
28:03I think Glasgow's full of fish.
28:06Next time...
28:07I think Glasgow's full of people producing food they love.
28:11We could live on this. Yeah.
28:13In the 70s, you had to go to Kenliff to buy olive oil.
28:15I remember.
28:16You know, and look how far we've come since then.
28:18It takes the sort of stress out of cooking
28:20in front of a television camera.
28:22Having Jack doing most of the work.
28:24Everybody is so willing to try things in Glasgow.
28:27And it's like the best chocolate I've ever tasted.
28:30Thank you, Rick.